


Wearing the Coat

by Barb Cummings (Rahirah)



Series: The Barbverse [116]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Older Characters, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:09:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2384507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahirah/pseuds/Barb%20Cummings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Spike.  And he's wearing the coat!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wearing the Coat

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It takes place approximately seven or eight months after "Roman Holiday" and "Three Coins In the Fountain," and contains spoilers for previous stories in the series.

In the ordinary way of things, Buffy wasn't a devotee of the House Beautiful. She snuck the occasional longing look at the photos on home and garden websites, but the two of them raising a rambunctious family of five more-or-less demonic children while holding down jobs that involved a great deal of ichor had never really been conducive to the worship of Martha Stewart. That was fine with Spike, who preferred his spaces lived-in, and felt that there was no sense tucking everything away in cupboards today when you were just going to have to pull it out again tomorrow. But every now and then she took it into her head to make Improvements, and at such times, a wise vampire retired to the basement to get in a few extra push-ups, or play Mortal Kombat, as the case might be.

It was perhaps inevitable that such a fit had overtaken her when they got home from Italy, but at least this time it didn't involve the wholesale movement of furniture and a week's worth of bickering with Harris over whether the living room walls were eggshell or ecru. Still, push-ups tended to pall after the hundred and seventh or so, and even the wisest vampire could get bored out of his skull. Spike approached the battlefield with trepidation nonetheless. Their bedroom looked like an explosion at a rummage sale: the bed a fortress of cardboard boxes, half-full of neatly folded garments, and clothes scattered like wounded soldiers across the floor. As he watched, a pair of lime-green jeggings flew through the air to land on the nearest bedpost. Curiosity overcoming caution, he rounded the corner of the bed. 

The Slayer was down on her hands and knees in the closet, hunting through the jumble of mysterious items at the back. She was barefoot, her hair scooped up in a rakish bandana, wearing a camisole over a lacy bra that barely contained the swell of her breasts and yoga pants that might as well have been spray-painted across her invitingly rounded arse. The best way for a soul-challenged chap to resist major temptations, he'd found, was to give in to the minor ones at every opportunity. Only followed logically that giving that alluring target a smack was tantamount to saving the life of whatever irritating berk pissed him off at the 7-11 next. 

Accordingly, Spike took the path of virtue. "Well, aren't you a right todger-stiffener this morning."

Buffy shrieked and jumped, only Slayer reflexes allowing her to avoid an altercation with a tangle of coat-hangers. She scrambled to her feet, pink-cheeked, and stabbed an index finger at his chest, but her eyes were laughing. There might well be more silver in her hair, on the few occasions she'd allow the world a glimpse of her roots, and the fine lines sketched around the corners of her eyes and mouth might be a little deeper, but there was a lightness about her now. It had come upon her gradually over the last few years, as it sunk in that yes, she really was retired, and the weight of the world was no longer hers to carry. "If it weren't for the fact that I'd have to dispose of your corpse, you'd have a stake through your heart right now, mister." 

Spike grinned back at her. "What's that I hear? 'Ooh, Spike, hand me my delightful arse seven ways from Sunday?'" He was the first to admit that he didn't much look the part of a dangerous creature of the night these days. More an ordinary (if devastatingly handsome) bloke in the no-man's-land between elderly and middle-aged, whose workouts were no longer quite sufficient to counter the long-term effects of his devotion to good beer and his wife's cooking. And Buffy was looking more the pleasantly plump and youthfully stylish grandmother than the rogue Slayer of legend. But Spike considered it a mark of a good relationship that their flirting still involved threats of bodily harm as often as not.

"Any time, any day – hey!" she said, as he picked her up, swept aside a litter of lipstick and nail polish, and deposited her atop the dresser. There was a smudge of dust on her nose; probably best he kiss it off. Couldn't be sanitary to leave it there. "Connie and Sam are bringing the grandkids over tonight, and I have work to – mmmf!"

"So do I," he purred, breaking the kiss to nip at her earlobe and nuzzle his way down her neck towards the bounty below. Much as he missed the children at times, there were definite advantages to most of them having moved out. (Not least the production of the aforementioned grandchildren.) Jess was their only bird yet to fly, and she wouldn't be home for hours yet. "Terribly...important...work." He drew back lazily. "Now what's more important than that?"

Buffy assumed the severe expression that meant she was fighting off a bout of temptation herself and indicated the sartorial carnage. "Getting rid of things. I have all these old clothes that don't fit anymore." She palmed his belly in both hands, giving it a fond little bounce. "So do you, for that matter."

"My britches still fit," Spike replied with a chuckle. "Just a little lower on the hips than they used to." In spite of Buffy's predictions, no one had actually needed to roll either of them onto the plane when they came home from Italy, though Spike was of the opinion that the airline had definitely installed shorter seatbelts since their flight out. "You're not usually this precipitous, Slayer. There's things in your wardrobe old enough to vote."

"Hey, I'm the new, realistic Buffy, who accepts that her hips have made like the Grinch's heart. Also..." She aimed a significant glance at the stack of luggage which had been piled beside the bed for several weeks now. "If I don't clear out the closet, I won't have any room for the new stuff I bought in Italy. Now try on those shirts and put the ones that are too small in that box."

"Yes, Your Majesty." He picked up the first shirt on the top of the pile and slipped it on over his t-shirt. He hadn't worn some of these for going on ten years, and they'd been shuffled to the back of the closet for good reason. They still fit across the chest and shoulders, but getting them to button all the way down was a different matter. One or two wouldn't close at all, and the rest were uncomfortably tight around the middle. Buffy watched critically as he shrugged into the last one. Maybe... "This one's a go."

"Don't suck in your stomach," she directed.

Spike gave her a mock glare. "I'm not," he grumbled, letting go his breath. The fabric between the buttons gaped as his belly bowed outwards again. "Much." He narrowed his eyes. “You’re just trying to get back at me for that swat on the rear, aren’t you?”

She giggled, swinging her heels against the dresser drawers. “It’s possible. I never liked that shirt anyway." 

He managed to undo the buttons before he popped them off laughing, and was about to toss the shirt into the nearest box when something caught his eye. Something lurking beneath the piles of brightly colored daylight clothes, something dark, something dangerous. He reached into the pile and pulled it free, held it up and shook out the folds of black billowing leather.

“Why, hello there,” he murmured. A thick layer of pale grey dust covered the duster’s shoulders and lapels. It wasn't in very good shape; a dozen carefully mended scuffs and rips were apparent in the light, and the leather was starting to crack in places. Not to mention the enormous scorch-mark across the front, souvenir of Willow blasting him with spellfire in the Hellmouth. One hand went absently to his chest, to rub the spot where the scar was still faintly visible, decades later. “It’s been awhile.”

He hesitated for a moment (if it didn’t fit, did he really want to find out?) and then swung the duster round and over his shoulders with a flourish. The old familiar scent rose around him, and his bones sang to the familiar weight and swirl of the long tails. It _did_ still fit. Maybe even better than it used to – it had always run large on him in the old days, and gut aside, he'd put on some muscle since he'd last worn it regularly, too. Had Nikki had inherited it from a brother or boyfriend, or had it just been a thrift-store find too good to pass up? (He still thought about her, now and then. Remembrance was no substitute for remorse, he supposed, but it was what he had to give.) 

He glanced at Buffy; her eyes were wide, and he could see her nipples perking through two layers of lace and cotton. Spinning round so the duster flared out behind him, he smirked at her. “Hullo, Little Red Riding Hood.” Hooking his thumbs in his belt, he swaggered across the bedroom – you didn't just walk in a coat like this; you swaggered or stalked or prowled. "What great big eyes you have."

"The better to see you with," she said, voice husky. She reached out and took him by the lapels, dragging him in for a kiss.

Not a duel any longer, their kisses, but a duet where both sides knew their piece by heart and played it like virtuosos – and like virtuosos, knew when a little improvisation was called for. It was entirely possible they'd bought this dresser because it was exactly the right height for him to fuck her on, and sturdy enough to withstand the collateral damage withal. Spike couldn't remember, but it sounded like the sort of thing they'd do. A proper fuck required concentration, after all, and you couldn't be bothered with shoddily-constructed furniture going to flinders in the middle of it. Buffy's bare toes curled and uncurled against his thigh, and her small strong hands burrowed beneath his duster, kneading the muscles of his back in time to his rumbling – oh, hell, might as well admit it was a purr. She made a demanding little noise deep in her throat and leaned back against the mirror, hitching her hips forward under the curve of his paunch to grind against his swelling cock. She wriggled imperiously beneath him. "Too many clothes." 

"We were about to get rid of things, weren't we?" He lifted her effortlessly off the dresser, and she drew her knees up and peeled the yoga pants off in mid-air. Buffy's impatient fingers were reaching for his belt even before he set her down again, undoing the buckle and tugging his jeans down off of his hips. 

"Keep the coat on," she said, breathless, as he pulled the camisole over her head and bent to nip at her tits and inhale her heady scent. He nudged her knees apart and positioned himself between her thighs, taking a moment to drink in the sight of her. Her body still stirred him like nothing else, not because it was beautiful (though it was, it was) but because it was _hers_. When they'd first come together she'd been a weapon, slim and deadly and single-purpose. By will and determination, she'd reforged herself otherwise, wrested a self and a life as Slayer and woman both from a fate that had sometimes seemed determined to prevent it. She was lush and welcoming now, if no less deadly, and he celebrated the sweet weight of her breasts, the yielding softness of her tummy pressed against the firmer bulge of his own.

Little Spike bobbed at full attention, the blunt head poking out of its foreskin, as if it too could scent home in the neat thatch of dark, silver-shot curls beneath the plush mound of her belly. He tested the waters with a finger or two - ah, yes, she was nice and slick now. She usually was, but at their age, no sense rushing it. Buffy braced her shoulders against the mirror and licked her lips, her eyes smoky with anticipation. Her nails raked his shoulders through the fabric of his t-shirt.

"Make me scream, Big Bad," she whispered.

"All night long, baby," he growled, and thrust home hard. The dresser rocked under the impact, the mirror banging against the plaster of the bedroom wall. Buffy clasped his hips between her thighs and Spike groaned happily – there was still Slayer steel beneath those cushiony curves. He pulled out with agonizing slowness, almost all the way, and thrust in again. One hand in the small of her back, the other teasing her clit mercilessly, hard and fast, slow and sweet. 

Buffy held on, backed up against her own reflection. She buried her head in his leather-clad shoulder, fingers crushing his lapels, and behind her, Mirror Buffy curled against nothing, shaking in nameless, causeless ecstasy. He could tell she was close, but much more of this and they were going to break the bloody mirror, and he wouldn't be thinking straight enough to care. With a snarl he lifted her, still impaled on his cock. Two steps over and one step forward and he was fucking her hard up against the wall, enveloped in the concealing folds of his duster. Buffy wrapped her legs around him and cried out, "Harder, harder, oh, Spike, ah, ah, ah – !"

She bloody well nearly wrung his dick in two when she came, and he didn't manage to hold on more than a few seconds longer, spending in a white-hot eternity of rapture. Buffy sagged against the wall and Spike sagged against her, both of them drawing deep, ragged breaths as the aftershocks worked through their bodies. "Now that was a trip down memory lane," he said presently. "Want down?"

"Not sure my legs will work," she mumbled into his shoulder.

"Completely certain mine won't." With a grunt he straightened, turned, and staggered for the bed, ruthlessly shoving boxes onto the floor. "But needs must etcetera."

They collapsed onto the bed together, the ragged black wings of his coat flaring out around them. Buffy curled up in the crook of his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Spike laughed, and she looked up. “What?”

“Just thinking about the days when I wore this all the time,” he said, wreathing one hand in her hair, which had fallen in glorious disarray about her shoulders. “If you’d told me back when I first rolled into Sunnydale that forty years later I’d be a grey-haired doting granddad who can’t get half his shirts buttoned over his gut, I’d have been absolutely sodding appalled. Topped myself then and there rather than face the ignominy, like as not.”

Buffy snorted. “You always were a drama queen.”

“I took myself so bloody seriously back then.” He bent to nuzzle the top of her head. “'Course even then if I'd known you'd be part of the bargain I might have reconsidered self-immolation.”

She smiled. "Someone said something about all night long," she pointed out. "And it's only one in the afternoon."

"Greedy minx. Give us a mo'. You can't expect a vamp of my advanced years and decrepitude to go more than two or three rounds at a time." A warm hand closed on his cock. "Four tops." He wondered occasionally if he'd have been able to handle mortality as well if the Mohra blood had simply made him human. Better than Angel had, he was certain, but still, he was grateful he'd never had to find out.

"Decrepitude, my delightful ass," said Buffy, squeezing his biceps. "But I'll give you the advanced years." She ran an appreciative hand down the length of the duster. "We should do this more often."

"Still think it makes me look good, eh?" For so many years, this coat had been the sign and sigil of all he was, the proof that William the Bloody meant something in the world. And now...

"Nope." She leaned over and planted a kiss on his nose. "I think you make it look good."

Now it was just an old coat. One that he'd outgrown, even if it did still fit. 

But... definitely worth the trying on now and then.

 

**End**


End file.
